Moral Philosophy Seminar (Monday - Week 6, TT19)

Susan Wolf

Most of us engage in aesthetic practices: we plant gardens, read novels, look at pictures, or try to paint them ourselves. For many of us, engagement in these aesthetic practices anchors our sense of who we are and what our lives are `about’. But aesthetic practices are also social practices: access to aesthetic skills is not distributed evenly across populations,  our recognition of an artefact aesthetic value may depend on the social identity of its producer, and whilst some aesthetic practices have high cultural capital (playing the cello), others do not (styling hair). By drawing on the aesthetics of Kant, Weil, and Murdoch, and the political philosophy of Hegel, Honneth, and Fanon, I argue that agents may be subject to a distinctively aesthetic injustice.


Convener: Ed Lamb

Members of the audience are invited to join the speaker and the convener for drinks and dinner at a local restaurant following the talk (at their own expense). There will be some limit on the number of people who can attend. Please RSVP to Ed Lamb to reserve a place. Please note that we will no longer be going to dinner afterwards at Somerville College to continue questioning the speaker. In future terms the time of the seminar may be brought forward to 15.00 - 17.00, which would make it possible for all to go to pre-dinner drinks. Please let Ed Lamb know if this change of time would make you more or less likely to attend.